Jennifer Reisberg, MA, LMHC

Background

Psychology and psychotherapy have been my life’s work for the entirety of my adulthood. Born in Northeast Ohio, I spent my college years in Pittsburgh before moving to Philadelphia, where I eventually became the clinical team leader of an inpatient drug and alcohol treatment center. I moved from the East Coast to Seattle in 2013 to pursue graduate training in psychotherapy and earned a Master's degree in existential-phenomenological psychology from Seattle University, where I now occasionally teach undergraduate psychology courses. Before co-founding Inside Out Therapy Alliance in 2016, I spent a couple of years working as a therapist in community mental health, where I saw adults and teenagers in individual psychotherapy. At Inside Out, I specialized in working with teens, eventually using a model I created alongside the co-founder of the practice.

Throughout my clinical experience, I developed another specialty: working with people who are interested in exploring gender and/or sexuality. At the end of 2020, I built and launched a new practice, Illuminate Seattle Psychotherapy, designed as a place where I can explore this speciality in its fullness. As part of my practice, in addition to therapy, I also regularly conduct assessments and write letters for people seeking gender-affirming surgeries.

When I’m not practicing therapy or teaching, I also spend some of my time as a qualitative researcher. I’m involved with projects that seek to offer a better understanding of different parts of the human experience. My most recent publication explored executives’ experiences of envy in the workplace. I have also authored papers on gender expression in subcultures.

Actually practicing psychotherapy has always been my primary focus and passion. I particularly enjoy working with people as they are finding their way, whether as teenagers in middle/high school, people going through gender transition, or people later along in life who have found themselves unfulfilled, unhappy, or otherwise seeking a new way of being. I find that I work best with people who are willing to explore themselves fully and try out new possibilities.